On Wednesday, June 6, members from various Million Women Mentors initiatives virtually convened to share their insights on how each of these initiatives impacts our movement, and reinforced the case for mentoring programs across all sectors. This one-hour webinar was a chance to celebrate and build on progress within each initiative, while providing concrete calls to action for attendees. To view the webinar please click here or the image above.

Key takeaways from the webinar were:

Mentor.Million Women Mentors is about more than just women mentoring women. Men can, and should, also mentor and be part of the movement. Reach out to your state team to find out how you can be involved in mentoring in your own state.

Celebrate success. Have fun with it. Stopping to acknowledge the work that has been done gives us energy to amplify the movement and build on our progress.

On Tuesday, June 26th, Catherine Lamson, SVP Chief Administrative Officer at The Memic Group, spoke about the unique partnership between Memic and Million Women Mentors at the Million Women Mentors Women in Insurance Meeting at Indeed Headquarters in New York City. Memic leads the state efforts in Maine, and shared the positive benefits about leading a state effort as a company. To see the slides they shared please click here.

Resources Available to Our Members Through Our Partnership with MENTOR

This webinar will explore how to design and deliver a mentoring program in a way that is inclusive and supportive of youth with disabilities

August 16 - Mentoring American Indian and Alaska Native Youth

Join this webinar to explore the importance of mentoring for Native communities and recommendations for implementing mentoring programming for Native youth in culturally relevant and competent ways.

September 20 - School-Integrated Mentoring

Mentoring programs that are embedded in schools have unique opportunities and challenges - from communicating with and supporting teachers, to aligning the program to the school's schedule, to exploring how mentoring can help schools achieve their goals. Join this webinar as experienced mentoring practitioners help navigate through school-based mentoring programs' opportunities and hurdles.

﻿On Saturday, June 16th, STEM Learning Lab Inc. and MWM-CANADA hosted Bring a Girl to STEM Day in Okanagan Regional Library Kelowna, British Columbia. This event invited young girls ages k-12 from around the city to come and explore the exciting world of STEM, and discover the bounty of career opportunities awaiting them in the STEM fields!

In addition to fun hands-on activities using electrical circuits, computer science and coding, the event kicked-off with several short motivational speeches from inspiring women within the community.

We cannot wait to feature more activities that come out of our MWM-Canada team, keep it up!

MWM-MN, Keyot, and Securian Financial Group teamed up on Thursday, June 14th to co-sponsor a great mentorship event in Saint Paul. The event gave woman in high school or college the opportunity to explore STEM-related education and career options in an open, collaborative and fun setting! A panel of female STEM professionals shared their experiences and gave participants a glimpse into a day in the life of STEM-related career professionals.

Pink paper planes coast through the air as a group of “STEMinists” test the gliders they designed. A special “DigiGirlz” event packed Microsoft’s Tampa offices; students controlled underwater robots to complete Mission: Tampa Bay. These are just a few ways Hillsborough County Public Schools is energizing more female students with a passion for careers in STEM fields where women are traditionally underrepresented. “If we can get the girls at an early age and show them the possibilities, they’ll get hooked,” says Nichelle Glenn, magnet lead teacher at Young Middle Magnet, a science and technology school in East Tampa. Hillsborough Schools have more Million Women Mentors volunteers than any district nationwide. We love the work they are doing down in FL, continue to build our movement!

On June 8th at the 8th-annual Women in Technology Conference, a full-day retreat celebrating women across Colorado’s growing tech community,Wendy Merchant, Founder & Executive Director of Girls in STEM Denver, received one of our STAND UP for STEM awards. In 2013, Wendy decided to follow her passion to give back to the community, founding the nonprofit, Girls in STEM Denver. Utilizing her talents, experience and extensive network of professional women working in STEM related careers, Girls in STEM Denver works directly with high school and middle school students to provide real world career exploration, networking, mentoring and job shadowing opportunities. Thank you Wendy for all your hard work for our movement!

WEBSITE UPDATES

Want to engage your company's employees? MWM Advisors Dane and Sheila Boyington are available to schedule personalized corporate webinars explaining the use of MWM's website portal, and the numerous opportunities available within it.

Companies/Organizations should only have one account. If you are the primary account holder for an entire company and intend to report on all mentors associated with the company or organization, you should select this category when creating your account. Once created, your company will display as an option for “parent organization” when employees register as a STEM Mentor. This is what ties your employees to the main company or organization account. Individuals within the company/org should register as STEM Mentors instead.

Members of the initiative gathered together at the Indeed office in New York City on June 26th to work towards achieving gender parity in the insurance industry. The all-day meeting focused on attracting and promoting women into executive roles which included presentations, panels, and group discussions. These discussions centered around what each member-company is doing to advance women while communicating and showcasing achievement both as a group and within the individual company leaders.

Also at this meeting, the updated issue of Women In Insurance Report was released. To view it please click here. As an initiative, they collectively decided their next steps are to promote outreach across the industry, collect data from individual companies to benchmark the current state of women in the industry, and to track the results awareness is spread through the use of the report.

Recently, Sheila Boyington, MWM States Chair and Maria Velissariou, MWM Volunteer, met with Ananya Asthna the founder of womeninstem.org.Women in STEM is an independent organization that aims to actualize goals of representation and equality in the STEM through empowering young women. It was founded at the University of Chicago Laboratory High School in the March of 2017, and already has 12 chapters in high schools in 6 states. They are always looking to learn and grow and will connect with MWM. If you are interested in learning more, please send the founder,Ananya Asthana, an email at ananya@womeninstem.org or contact her through the website!

FEATURED RESOURCES

MWM-EI is unique in its mentorship support of growing STEM Women Business Enterprises (WBE) entrepreneurs as an effort of the Million Women Mentors Movement, matching women mentees with women mentors, The MWM-EI is sponsored by Wells Fargo, and the MWM Entrepreneurship committee is chaired by Wells Fargo’s SVP, Regina Heyward.

STEM women and women of color are some of the fastest growth area of our economy. The WBEs that are part of MWM-EI include technology-based companies in the government and private sectors. The 2017 program shows that the selection of talented WBE owners matched with committed mentees demonstrated success can be achieved. Critical is the matching of mentees with mentors, careful review of business plans and providing of monthly input and reports is proving to have impact.

Released on June 26th at the Women in Insurance's event in New York, the paper provides an overview of existing trends in the industry while highlighting innovative approaches currently underway at a number of leading insurance organizations and sharing critical opportunities for recruiting and nurturing top female talent. If you are interested in reading the report please click here.